Global Game Jam Aftermath

Soooo, I survived my first Global Game Jam. Yippee! And I even helped make a game in 48 hours that you could play (somewhat). How did it go, you might ask. Well I will tell you in a conveniently concise bullet-point list:

• I forced myself to pitch an idea since it was my first game jam. Probably a bad idea but I did it anyway and a couple of people seemed to actually understand what I was pitching in spite of my incoherent babbling.
• My idea didn't garner enough support to make it to the next round, but a few people seemed to genuinely like it and I learned a lot about pitching to a large audience and how not to do it.
• Two other ideas that I liked did make it to the next phase and I managed to get on the team for one of them, a game called Inner Monster.
• I met some great and talented people, drank a lot of Mountain Dew and ate a lot of pizza.
• We had some version control issues and perhaps overestimated what we could accomplish in 48 hours, but otherwise had a lot of fun and our game was playable if not complete.
• I worked as a programmer and designer. Most of my design elements didn't have a chance to get implemented but I did a fair share of programming (for someone who is not a programmer) including the enemy AI (all four of them).

Okay well maybe that wasn't concise, but there you have it. Cheers to all the guys on my team. Congrats to everyone who participated. And most of all thanks to my lovely wife who let me go and geek out for the whole weekend while she stayed home trying to keep a two-year-old and five-year-old entertained.

And if you would like to check out the game we made click here. Also a photo of all the downtown Orlando game jammers can be viewed here and the games our site made are here. Finally you can feast your eyes below to see some concept art and screen shots of the game we made.

We Be Jammin

So the Global Game Jam is almost here. This will be my first game jam and I am very:

A) Excited
B) Nervous
C) Congested
D) All of the above

Take your pick. For those of you who don't know what a game jam is, basically a bunch of people get together and try to make a game over the course of a weekend. The Global Game Jam is international and countries all over the world will be taking part. Check the Global Game Jam website for a gathering near you. I will be attending the one here.

So there you have it. Go out and meet some people and work on some games. For freedom - for justice - for all humanity!

Belated Shout-Out

Special shout-out to The Guild of Independent Game Developers who have meetings at Full Sail twice a month; one open development meeting and one lecture.  These meeting are open to the public and you do not have to be a student to go.  You may have to bang on the door to get them to let you in, though.  :)

I usually go to the open development meetings to get out of the house and work on my game.  The organizers are happy to help when you get stuck on something. For instance, when you want your game to use one bullet prefab to instantiate when shooting in any of four directions but for some reason you can only get it to work by having four bullet prefabs that are each unique to a given direction.  Thanks David.